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You need a price change! Need proof?

I had an interesting conversation with a client this week!

My client, Mr. Seller, who has his property listed right now didn’t want to change the price of their property.  I went over the details and explained that the price we are asking is getting attention but we aren’t getting any buyers through the place.  Let me explain!

As part of my marketing, we do detailed analysis on all our listings on Fridays, officially dubbed Feedback Friday at our office, where we gather data about all our online activities and see how well our listings are being exposed.  This allows us to fine tune our marketing to hit the largest target audience.  We use sophisticated tools such as google analytic to see where our traffic is coming from and how many times they returned, and ask for more information.  We measure all these numbers against our showings and if we are not getting enough visits, we know that we have enough exposure but it’s not translating into visits.  There is something missing!  There are three items in this instance we have to look at to increase our visits:

  1. Condition of property
  2. Market
  3. Price of property

The condition relates to how the property looks when a prospect visits the listing.  This includes but not limited to pictures of the property, virtual tours, floor plans, property information and property description.  We examine the details of these to make sure it looks the most appealing to the buyers we are targeting.   All the pictures are done professionally and when appropriate, we stage our properties and posts additional pictures through virtual tour and property-specific websites.  We also encourage our clients to provide a detailed lists of all the upgrades completed on the website to provide a comprehensive list of features of the property that would entice buyers to come through.  We also follow up with all the buyers that have come through the property and collect specific feedback about the condition of the property.

This property is well staged and shows very well online.  We are getting a constant traffic from online sources and showings but it hasn’t generated an offer yet.  The buyers that have gone through the place like the place but don’t like the price which, though is  to be taken with a grain of salt, is an indicator why there is no offer yet.

If the property shows well online, our next item of discussion is market.  As you might know, when we, the REALTOR, make a market analysis for a property, it is based on information that is already obsolete.  In a climbing market, the analysis we have completed is already lower than what the current market is doing and vice verse in a downturn market.  So how do you tackle this problem?  We do mini competitive market analysis every week and keep our clients posted on it.  If we see three new comparable listings coming up, this means that there is an increase in competition and we have to adjust our property listing to match it.  If the listings are lower, we have to look at lowering our price and if they are higher, we have to sit pretty because those listings will help our client sell their place.

In a downward trend, we have to make sure our property is priced ahead of the market.  What does this mean?  Let’s say we have a property listed at $499,000 and at week 4 we notice we have two new listings that have come up at $489,000 and are comparable to our listing.  If the market is slipping, we have to make sure we price our property ahead of the competition probably at $479,000 or $484,900 to capture the most of the market and get the property sold.  All of this also depends on the motivation of the seller.  We have to make sure the sellers understand the difference of $10,000 means the possibility of getting an offer or not getting one at all.  If you get a low offer, it’s not a bad thing!  It means that there are buyers who think they can work with the price and will buy it at the right price.  The issue is when there is no offer because we can’t entice the buyer to even submit an offer.

In conclusion, a property that is priced well will sell.  In order to get top dollar for a property, you need to pay attention to what the competition is doing on regular basis as well show the property at it’s best which means including the staging, professional photography, floor plans, intense online market and yes, top notch negotiating skills.

I was able to get the price reduction on our listing because we showcased to our seller how we are doing our job and quantified why we need to have a price change.  Now if you excuse me, I have to get back to my work and get this property sold for our client.

 

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